Silicon Boozy: 14 Potent Drinks as Tech Companies

Silicon Valley has never been as booze-fueled as New York. The tech sector here owes its success to programmers addled on caffeine, programmers who give their software names like "Java," "CoffeeScript," "Cappuccino," and other tributes to the old cup of joe.
But booze still has its place. Beer pong played a key role in the early days of Facebook, for example, if only in helping the social network’s obsessive programmers quiet their minds and relax. Over at Twitter, they brewed their own beer andlaunched their own wine. And ales fuel all-night hackathons like Yahoo’s Hack Day, where creativity is the goal and pizza blunts the impact of alcohol.
Of course, alcohol could play another supporting role in the Valley: helping to make sense of the endless river of startups drowning the tech scene at the moment.
The names blur together; Dropbox sounds like Box, which sounds like Square, which sounds like Fousquare. But if you imagine each of these companies as tipples rather than technologies, as clinks rather than clicks, as delightful drams to lift your spirits rather than hustlers trying to lift your dough, it becomes so much more pleasant and memorable to watch them float by as they make their way downstream to their liquidity benders and consolidation hangovers.
Above, find the 14 most memorable drink-plus-tech company pairings we could come up with. If you care for a chaser, leave suggested company/cocktail combinations in the comments; we'll update the post mid-day to toast the best of your ideas.

Zynga

Salty Dog

In addition to evoking Zynga's canine corporate logo, the salty dog includes a nutritious dose of grapefruit juice, which will help fortify your body against the ravages of a post-layoff, post-stock-dive, or post-FarmVille-overspending binge.

Twitter

Shot of Evan Williams

Evan Williams isn't just the name of Twitter's co-founder and earliest financial benefactor; it's also a damned fine-value bourbon. "It's a terrific deal," Eric Felten wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "Evan Williams is made of whiskey that has been in oak for five to seven years, and the extra age comes through. The nice spicy rye in the mash also comes through, giving the bourbon a dash of cinnamon that keeps the vanilla sweetness from cloying." In deference to the microblogging service from the bourbon's namesake, limit your evening to three shots -- or around 140ml.

Yahoo

Yoohoo and Bourbon

Yoohoo, if you've not tried it, is kind of like chocolate milk, much as Yahoo is kind of like Google. As for the bourbon, it's historically paired well with checking the value of Yahoo stock options. (Maybe under new CEO Marissa Mayer champagne will become a more appropriate pairing.)

Pinterest

Bellini

This trendy combination of Prosecco and peach puree is both elegant and girly, much like the idea-sharing site we've paired it with. Now raise a toast to conspicuous consumption.

Apple

Absinthe

Though favored by 19th century poets like Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, absinthe was alleged to turn its devotees into crazy addicts. Where Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was said to disorient his followers with a "Reality Distortion Field," absinthe was said to unleash a "Green Fairy" on its victims. As with Apple, absinthe was nearly destroyed by ill-informed groupthink before mounting a 21st-century comeback.

Samsung

Pernod

Samsung's Android-powered smartphones and tablets are kind of -- kind of -- like iPhones and iPads. Or at least they are in the same disappointing sense that Pernod, created by Paul Ricard after the widespread banning of absinthe, is kind of like absinthe, but not quite. (It lacks wormwood and green anise.) Just as Android pioneered its own computing niche in 7-inch tablets, Pernod is a preferred ingredient in the cold-water drink often referred to as a pastis.

Etsy

A Homemade Elderberry Martini

The sensibility behind Etsy, a Brooklyn-based e-commerce site for artisans, dovetails well with the craft cocktail movement. This drink pairs the cocktail-snob appear of an exotic, all-natural liqueur with the DIY vibe of a drink simple enough to be made in your own kitchen.

Microsoft

Old Fashioned

Personal computing's original stalwart Microsoft has been eclipsed by Apple and Google, yes. But the enduring power and endless variations of its operating system call to mind this stalwart mixture of rye or bourbon whiskey, bitters, sugar, water and ice. You can argue over the role, if any, of lemon peel, brandied cherry, and (shudder) orange slices, and you can swap in brandy for the whiskey or gum syrup for the sugar. No one can stop you from calling your drink an old fashioned, even if it's as different from the granddad's as Windows ME was from Windows 2000, or Windows RT is from Windows Vista.

RIM

Molson, Room Temperature

It's Canadian. It's humdrum. And it's decidedly not cool. Are we talking about the beer or the Canadian BlackBerry maker? We're talking about both.

Google

Deconstructed Negroni

The Wall Street Journal's cocktail writer Eric Felten referred to this as a "non-mixed mixed drink," since it turns a red Italian apertif (Aperol, in this case) into a foam and layers it on top of gin rather than mixing the two together as in a regular Negroni. This deconstructed cocktail is considered part of the "molecular gastronomy" movement, in which science is applied to food, an unabashedly nerdy and quantitative approach that would be right at home at Mountain View, California-based Google, which sometimes seems to operate as much like a research university as a business.

Square

Box of Sake

Square's CEO Jack Dorsey is all about details, fussing over the fit and finish of the iPhone icons for his payment app and asking his graphic designers to emulate the stitching on an Hermès wallet. Which makes him perfect for the Japanese fermented rice beverage Imbibe described as an "amazing world of flavors, both subtle and bold." That Dorsey is a fan of jeans woven in Japan and the Japanese concept of "wabi-sabi" -- and that sake is often drunk from square containers -- is just a nice bonus of this pairing.

Groupon

A 12-pack of Pabst

Like the online discounter we've paired it with, Pabst isn't a highbrow choice. But it's a hit with the stingy, young and old alike. The same goes for Groupon - both its deals and its battered stock.

Facebook

Jäger With Budweiser Chaser

Beer pong was a big part of the early company culture at Facebook, according to author and Fortune writer David Kirkpatrick, which sounds about right for a startup founded by a frat brother from his dorm room. The company may have evolved and grown in the meantime, but as the nacho restaurant on its corporate campus proves, the young company still clings to its campus-life roots. Hence the decidedly collegiate booze combo, as ill advised as a keg stand -- or a rash change to your privacy policy.

Dropbox

Long Island Iced Tea

In fairness, a Dropbox installation goes down much smoother than this infamous hydra-headed highball. But like the computer folder Dropbox syncs for you across the internet, the Long Island iced tea contains a little bit of everything.

Bar photos taken at House of Shields in San Francisco. All photos: Ariel Zambelich/Wired